10/31/98Site News: Delays15:03: The slew of updates is going to happen sometime today, hopefully, but not until the last of these server problems is fixed. Stay tuned.

Site News: ZD down for unknown reasons14:07: Again, I apologize for ZD being down for the last 2 days. I don't understand why this keeps happening, and the only reason I can come up with is that we're being attacked by the Downtime fairy. Anyways, get ready for mega updates.

10/28/98Misc. News: Amiga site shut down...11:23: In something rather surprising (to me at least), an extremely popluar Amiga site, Lazarus, was shut down today. I truly thought I'd never see the day that Amiga would do some crap like this; I always thought that they were different than the fucking dictatorships that companies like Nintendo run.

Everyone here should (supposedly) know about Amiga's upcoming comeback attempt, which Gateway 2000 is helping to make a reality. Gateway supposedly shut down the site, acting for Amiga themselves.

Emulator News: About the Combat School emulator09:56: Yesterday, Nitro posted that the Combat School emulator documentation was written in french. However, I've received several e-mails saying that this is not so. Upon looking at it, I guess it's either Spanish or Portugese. This isn't really important though, since either way, it's not in English.

10/27/98Emulator Release: Z26 1.1723:01: A new version of Z26 is here and here's what's new:

Translation News: A Few Translation Page Updates20:20: I added a Hello Kitty World translation and updated the Final Fantasy 2 patch to 1.03. Go there and get 'em.

Site News: ZSNES Shrine Updated20:09: Thought you might like to know... You can go look at it or something.

Site News: SPC Archive to go RAR19:04: Due to overwhelming demand (35 for it, 2 skeptical), the SPC Archive will be migrating to the RAR format. Also, I stand corrected regarding UnRAR's ability to handle LFNs-- the Win32 console version handles them perfectly (The DOS16 version does not, of course). Expect to see a major update in the future...

Emulator Release: Combat School Emulator18:23: A Combat School emulator has been released. This emulator is in french, so I probably won't be able to tell you what is new in future versions. But, this emulator is a Combat School emulator for Windows 95\98\NT.

Emulator News: About ZSNES modemplay17:50: Well, I decided to give the head to head modemplay in ZSNES a try. Equipped with Spiderman: Seperation Anxiety, my friend Ed (aka hypr) and I played. I was Venom, he was Spiderman. Basically, it was great! There was just about no lag at all, and except for the fact that there is a bug in Spiderman: SA that causes the enemies to flash on and off as big blue blotches, it was enjoyable.

I haven't tried out IPX support yet, maybe if I ever get Kahn, I'll give it a whirl.

Emulator Release: X128 0.9110:50: James McKay has issued a minor update to his Sinclair ZX Spectrum emulator today. Just one bugfix in X128 0.91:

Fixed bug where loading TAP/TZX/VOC files with 'Edge Loading = OFF' would result in a DOS/4GW crash.

Thanks to Hendrik Bezuidenhout for this news as well. You can download X128 0.91 from the Sinclair emulators page.

Emulator Release: R80 0.0409:23: A new version of R80, a Sinclair Spectrum 48/128/+3/Pentagon emulator, has been released. Here's what's new in R80 0.04:

TRD support with partial Betadisk emulation

Z80 bugfixes

Adlib sound code fixes

Tape rewinds to Start of Tape when it arrives to the End of Tape.

Fast reset (CONTROL+F2) now works for Pentagon 128.

Tape Browser (some modifications):

Added quit dialog (only when in graphic mode).

Added a new video mode: VESA2 640x480x256.

Command line is 100% working again.

Thanks to Hendrik Bezuidenhout for the news. You can download R80 0.04 from the Sinclair emulators page.

Site News: ZSNES mirror updated08:44: Well, since ZSNES 0.700c was released last night, I've updated the ZD ZSNES mirror page, so if you haven't already downloaded .700, you can get it frm there.

10/26/98Emulator Release: ZSNES .700c23:31: Whoop dee doo! Brandy new ZSNES hot off the presses. The best things about this release are that there's modem to modem 'netplay', DSP1 support (Super Mario Kart), and 48 mbit ROM support (Tales of Phantasia). Here's the full list of what's new:

Fixed another offset per tile mode bug

Fixed up joystick button update rate

Fixed a bug that caused sound buffer dump option to crash

Fixed a minor sound initialization bug

ZSNES now compiles with C code!

Fully rewritten commandline parser routines

Partially rewritten SET BLASTER/SET CMDLINE detection

Implemented partial DSP1 support. Seems to have some precision problems. Thanks to the snes9x team for the info!

Fixed a mode 7 nonrepeat mode off by 1 tile bug

Implemented snapshot/increment by 2 frame feature in the F1 menu for those interested in producing animations

Implemented Turbo Buttons for buttons A,B,X, and Y. Use the GUI to define those keys

Added the ability to toggle Turbo Change speed to 30hz instead of 60hz in the Options menu

Started C4 chip emulation. Nothing is playable yet.

Fixed up SET CMDLINE detection. Hopefully, zsnes.cfg and zguicfg.dat will now end up in the correct directory.

Started Modem Support (direct modem to modem). DOS-Compatible modem required! Thanks to Dark Force for helping out on getting a bug that kept USR's and other modems from working! Also thanks to The Minder for a lot of help testing! Note : Modem mode isn't free of bugs

Added in-game chat key to the GUI keys for modem/net support. Currently defaulted to 't'

Forgot to add EMMS after any MMX routines that seems to cause any FPU instructions to crash

Fixed an interrupt re-enable bug in the Gamepad Pro code which seems to have eliminated the locking bugs when it's not set on GrIP mode

Implemented keys to adjust Frame Rate up or down during gameplay. You can define them through the GUI under Gamekeys

Implemented keys to slide the volume level up or down during gameplay

Fixed a small HDMA screw up bug when using Save/Load states which caused the screen to flicker once in many games

Finally fix up 48mbit mapper support! Many thanks to Dark Force, Mike Gilroy, and Frank Hughes for a lot of help on this!

Several fixes to register 4211h

Rewrote IRQ timing handler (not perfect, but better)

Implemented Fossil Driver support to the modem support.

Fixed an IRQ reenable bug

Increased default cycles a bit

Fixed some major mode 7 rotation bugs

Added support for uninterleaved 48mbit roms

Added a FIX option to the cheat code to correct incorrectly converted codes

Implemented Mode 7 horizontal flip

Implemented primitive IPX support. It is very primitive at the moment and may not work since it isn't really tested much.

Optimised some 65816 direct page addressing modes NOTE : .ZMV (Movie) files recorded under v0.635 has good potential on becoming obsolete in this version because of the timing changes NOTE : IPX support and Modem support may be buggy since it hasn't been tested on multiple types of connections yet.

PHEW, now that you've gotten threw that slew of new things, be sure to pick it up at the SNES emulators page.

Utility News: PSEmu Plugin Update22:13: Kazzuya's Software mode plugin (KazSoft) for PSEmu Pro has been updated again, to version 1.1.1. Here is what has been changed:

Emulator Release: X128 0.914:16: James McKay, author of Massage, has released a new version of his Spectrum 48/128/+2/+2A/+3/Pentagon/Scorpion emulator, X128. It's been over a year in the making. Here's what's new in X128 0.9:

ACB/ABC stereo via OPL3 or SB Pro.

TRD writing.

Edge loading.

320x240 X-mode.

INI file.

DISCiPLE/+D emulation via MGT files.

The source has also been uploaded to ZD, along with the X128 ROMS. You can download X128, the source, and the ROMs from the Sinclair emulators page.

10/25/98Misc. News: DarkMazda's Domain Returning?23:00: As you may know, DarkMazda's Domain (home of AAGT) has been down for a few weeks. I was talking to DarkMazda, and he said that his site will be back soon and will have a new look. He also said that a new Rockman & Forte patch will be out soon. I'll keep you informed -=o]

Emulator Release: SNEmul V. 0.85b20:31: In its' second update in less than a day, a new version of SNEmul has been released. It's now at version 0.85b. It's even more of a minor release than the one we updated earlier today. The readme wasn't even updated for this one. Here's what has been updated:

Added more compatibility to the emulator, so more games should work.

Pick it up on the SNES Emulators page. Thanks go to Scarlet-Slider for telling me.

Emulator Release: Raine 0.16a20:31: A new version of Raine is finally here, and here's what's new:

Translation News: RPGe is back16:08: RPGe is back now. It looks like some new patches were released too, but they're not online yet. Go check out the site.

Misc. News: New GYM Archive12:05: No, I don't mean the kind you work out at :) Christian Schiller of Eidolon's Inn has e-mailed ZD to let us know that he has started a genecyst .GYM archive. For those who don't know, a GYM file is similar to ZSNES SPCs in that it contains all the instructions that are passed on to the sound processor so that music and sound is produced. From the e-mail:

I decided to open a GYM archive because of one reason: In the future there might be a utility comparable to SPCplay (for SNES sound) which emulates only the YM2612+PSG instead of the whole Genesis machine. This is the only way to achieve (almost) real Genesis sound (as opposed to converting the GYM files to MIDI), and that┤s the reason why I opened the new GYM archive section.

Misc. News: Emulator page moves11:49: Official emulator pages have been moving around like mad lately. Following are the new homepages for Handy (a Lynx emulator for Windows 9X) and TheSE (an SNES emulator for DOS):

The GUI is now functional! Please report all bugs with it! A single-click will load a configuration, with a double-click launching the configuration.

Changed to be a true Windows Application again, meaning NO UGLY CONSOLE WINDOW when running WinUAE.exe from the Explorer, a Desktop shortcut, etc. All former console-output now goes to the winuaelogs.txt file in the same directory as the WinUAE executable.

Emulator Release: SNEmul 0.8505:26: Archeide and v0x have released version 0.85 of their SNES emulator for DOS. This is a minor release, but it should put to rest any questions about SNEmul's future. Here's what's new:

The SRAM was not always saved, that's fixed.

Speed hacks can be disabled in the options menu.

Window clippings can be disabled in the emulation menu.

The ROM Editor dialog was also implemeted (but useless for the moment)

Site News: Regarding the SPC archive and WinRAR02:38: Well, it has come to my attention that using WinRAR with large dictionaries (a compression option) can reduce a large ZIP full of SPCs to a mere fraction of its size (a 3000k ZIP reduces to a 300k RAR). Question is however, if you, the visitor, is willing to use RAR instead of ZIP. Distributions of RAR exist for DOS, Windows, and various flavors of Unix, however, the DOS version cannot handle preserving LFNs (long filenames). If you do not mind switching the SPC archive to RAR format for the massive size reduction, or if you have objections to switching, please e-mail Zophar your opinion.

Misc. News: SNES Chart v 1.5001:38: The biggest and best SNES emulator game compatibility list has been updated to version 1.50. SNES Chart has been around for a while, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to see what games work for which emulator, especially emulator authors. Sam Pettus has announced that this will be the last release for a while, so enjoy! You can download SNES Chart v 1.50 from the SNES emulators page.

10/24/98Misc. News: E-mail problems23:22: My shell account has backed up, because of some 5mb quota imposed on me... so anyone sending me SPC zips, please send them to alamone@iname.com instead of alamone@table.jps.net. To those who already sent to alamone@table.jps.net, I manually retrieved the data so you do not have to resend.

Emulator Release: Snes9x v1.12 for dos18:30: New version of snes9x, snes emulator, my personal favorite snes emulator. This is an official release, what's new:

Cyber Warrior X is now the maintainer of the Dos Port

A new SPC Dumper has been implemented (use F1 to activate)

Pretty much Complete Config file support(special thanks to Kreed for the inspiration), joystick mappings and a few other things need to be added later

NetPlay has been disabled for this release since it crashes under all systems using Scitech Display Doctor

Diagonal Keys on number pad can now be used(makes games like Street Fighter easier to use)

Changed Grip Mapping, should be as close to a real Snes pad as possible

Added a Fast-forward key (it's like what the tilde key does in Zsnes) Use F2 to activate, and F3 to put the speed back to normal

Disabled Quick-freeze due to a planned rewrite of it, as well as a remap

Emulator Release: v0.7 ports for iNES (for Unix)14:32: 1 new port for Marat's iNES, Nintendo emulator for Unix, and 2 older ports added. The new port is for SunOS and there were ports added for Solaris and OSF/1.

Emulator Release: v1.2 ports for MasterGear (for Unix)14:00: 3 new ports and 1 updated port for Marat Fayzullin's Sega Master System/Sega Gamegear emulator, MasterGear. New ports to Linux, OSF/1, and SunOS and a new v1.2 port to Solaris. Same as v1.2 for FreeBSD.

Emulator Release: ColEmDos 1.001:57: Firebug has just released version 1.0 of his DOS port to Marat Fayzullin's Coleco emulator for UNIX and other platforms, ColEm. Here's the features exclusive to Firebug's DOS port of ColEm:

10/23/98Emulator News: Snes9x: clearing the air13:04: There have been some rumours about the bug that's in the current DOS version of Snes9x, preventing it from running Mario Kart. It was rumoured to be intentionally inserted. Here's an e-mail from Cyber Warrior X clearing things up:

I'm just emailing you to clear this up. The bug in Snes9x Dos Port was never "intentional"(as was said on www.zophar.net). It was some bug in allegro where it didn't like how the DSP1 emulation and the Sound emulation were both using float pointing values simultaneously. Gary's finally got rid of all the floating point code in the Sound Emulation and now it works without crashing.

Hope that clears things up.

Emulator News: MAME to support Mortal Kombat and others05:37: A future version of MAME will be adding support for several new games, including Mortal Kombat, Smash TV, and T2: Arcade. You can see the new screenshots at the MAME WIP screenshots page. Thanks to Dave's Classics for the news.

Site News: Cleaning up dead links & Juno First05:08: I'm in the process of checking every single emulators page on ZD and fixing up any dead links, or links to pages that have moved. This is something that should have been done a long time ago, and is now finally being done :)

On a side note, as I was cleaning up some links, I noticed that Juno First, an arcade emulator for Win9X, may not be dead after all. From the homepage:

19/10/98 - Nothing major, just a move from my old ISP to new ISP. I'm still snowed under at work and will be for at least another month or two. I am working on Juno when I get a chance and I will release it when it's ready to ship. There is a bug in the TnF emulation which causes a crash in the hammer throwing.. It will be fixed in the next version along with the RType I bug. My new email address is junofirst@junofirst.freeserve.co.uk but I probably won't be able to check it very regularly. My chrish@kcbbs.gen.nz email account hopefully will stay alive for a while. Try this email address in preference to the freeserve one.

Emulator Release: Z26 1.1603:47: John Saeger has released version 1.16 of Z26, his Atari 2600 emulator for DOS. Just a minor bugfix release:

Utility News: UniROM 0.60!05:20: Yeah, woo boys and girls :) UniROM has now been updated and made better than ever! Unfortunately I had to scrap the plans for the .DTX files for now since it was so BEEEPing slow. Anyway, it's got a little setup proggie now tha
t starts if it can't find the file unirom.ini. For those of you that don't know, UniROM is a ROM text hacker. It supports DTE and Dual Hex Tiles, which is kinda useful.
If you haven't tried it I hope you will :)

Here's the long list of news:

Wow, new release! One that doesn't crash all the time! Guess why? The answer's simple: Error handling has been implemented. Have fun.

I had to scrap my plans for the .DTX files until I get a more optimizable way to use them. In other words: They we're too slow!

A little setup proggie has been incorporated so that you can setup UNIROM if unirom.ini doesn't exist or the program can't find it.

The screen now doesn't mess up as badly as before. It may look a bit bad, but just press HOME and it'll be alright again.

Loads of bugfixes.

Removed the "default loaded blah" shit. Noone uses it.

.bnu loading is now Lightning-fast!

Loads of new stuff in FF2.UBF! What's that, you ask? It's the bookmark file for Final Fantasy 2. Just load it and press F6 when you've entered editing mode.

I added some new .USD files(UniROM Script Dump files) so tha you can dump ALL of the text in FF2.

I will soon change the script dump format to a much more easy one to use later, when I add script inserting.

Emulator Release: PSEmu Pro 1.10!!!04:48: PSEmu Pro has now been UPDATED! And this time it's no leaked private alpha or anything else! This is the real thing, the real official release!
If you want gfx drivers, etc you should go to www.psemu.com.

Anyways, here's the most important news:

MDEC support (although not all MDEC movies work yet, due to other problems)

Frontend News: Run-It games file updated.04:24: A new games file was released for Run-It, so it now support Mame beta 5. The archive has been updated and can be grabbed off Universal frontends page.

10/21/98Translation News: Riki & Kunio English patch released23:52: Riki & Kunio, the game we have a Hebrew patch for, is also being translated into English. Go the the translation patch page to get the English patch.

Translation News: Villgust Translation 100% Complete22:56: Transcore has completed their translation of Villgust, an RPG for the SNES. Get the patch at the translation patch page.

Emulator Release: X-Mame v0.34b5.222:54: New beta version of the multiple arcade machine emulator, beta 5.2, for Unix. What's new from 5.1:

Fixed the __extension__ compile bug, I hope

Fixed the segfault when compile without joystick-support & joy=1 in xmamerc

Merged in gl-mame code, many thanks to Mike Oliphant for the excellent and easy to merge patch. see doc/README.xgl

Merged in net-mame code, many thanks to Eric Totel, for the also excellent and easy to merge patch. see doc/multiplayer-readme.txt

Site News: Zophars Domain ScreenSaver Released Part 2.17:43: Yeah... I added some icons and stuff, and seems how Grimmett is gone, it looks like I will be deleteing an icon. But, I don't think he is gone yet. I also fixed some bugs that were irritaing some people.

Frontend News: Run-It 1.61!07:45: The universal fronted Run-it has been updated! This new release was just a minor update that fixed a bug when you were running it from a cd(for whoever that would do that, heh), so I'll post the news for the 1.6 release instead
since we missed that one.

Neorage beta/0.2d support

Dual snapshot preview (title and in-game)

Pic directories renamed in 'TitlePic' and 'GamePic'

Del Key or middle click swaps between snapshots

napshot options saved

Contextual menus

Intellimouse support

Relatives paths

Additional neorage parameters

Type of games added in the list

Dos name is now displayed in the status bar

Easy installation (Just one file!)

Keep track of selected game when refreshing game list

Root directory bug corrected

Brand new interface with tabs

Sort arrow in column header

New kiwi bios support (>= 0.45)

Now using Delphi 4.0 !

Corrected a bug preventing 2020sb and 3 countb from appearing in thee list

Frontend News: fwNES Express 2.21!07:04: fwNES Express, the currently best fwNES frontend has been updated! It's been a long time since the last release, and this is only a minor update, but let's check out what's new:

Misc. News: Oh, how I hate this....06:03: Our computer teacher has turned of ALL ftp access from the school, so until I've talked him out of this madness or I get another way of uploading things, I can't do anything!
Please keep sending me mails, though, since I WILL be updating when I can!

Site News: SPC requests Part III02:06: Well, many of the SPC soundtracks that I've requested for the ZSNES SPC page have been submitted, thanks to many of you, and added to the page. There's only a few complete soundtracks left that I'm loo
king for:

Final Fantasy V

Breath of Fire

Breath of Fire 2

Secret of Mana

Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals

Remember to e-mail alamone first before sending him anything, and also remember to fill out the form.

Emulator News: MAME to support NEO GEO sound01:11: In an announcement on DavesClassics MAME WIP page, it's been announced that the next release of MAME will have support for NEO GEO sound! Right from the MAME WIP page:

People have waited ages for this, but its finally here. NEO GEO SOUND! Thats right! I've only tried two games so far: Puzzle Bobble and Super Side Kicks, and both sound AWESOME! However, there is a significant performance hit. On my p233 i need framesk
ip 2 and a low sample rate. Hopefully there is still some optimizing to do.

Stay tuned!

Emulator Release: Handy 0.5001:02: Keith Wilkins, after about half a year of inactivity, has resumed Handy and released version 0.50. There's not too much new, but much is planned for the future. Here's what's new:

Emulator Release: Snes9x unofficial Mario Kart release00:26: Matt Christensen has taken it upon himself to compile a version of Snes9x for DOS that fixed the Mario Kart bug (intentional bug?) that caused it to crash. Note that this is totally unsupported, and is not an official release f
rom the Snes9x camp. You can download it from the SNES emulators page.

Site News: New Poll00:20: I have updated the poll. Here are the results from the last poll:

"Which of these would you like to see the most at Zophar's Domain?"

Choice 1 was: "A total redesign of the site!"
It received 39 votes (12.8 percent).

Well, it seems like the people have asked for a typed-up game manuals section, a topic brought up a few months ago, or something like that. Choice 3 lead the polls with 21.6% of the votes. Choice 7 was not too far behind, asking Zophar's Domain to tell so
me stories of emulation history, perhaps like "What happened a year ago today", and such. The third most popular choice asked for a redesign of Zophar's Domain... The staff of Zophar's Domain will take these results into consideration.

Anyways, the new poll is one of those moral questions, loaded with choices as always :

10/20/98Emulator News: 7800 support for MESS23:49: MESS, a multi console/computer emulator for various platforms including DOS, MacOS and UNIX, will be adding Atari 7800 support in the next version! This will be the world's first Atari 7800 emulator when it's released. Check out this screenshot:

Emulator Release: Z26 1.1523:45: While ZD was down (have we heard this phrase before?), John Saegar released version 1.15 of his Atari 2600 emulator for DOS, Z26. Here's what's new:

Added automatic paddle support for a few more games and better support for tall games.

The following new video modes were also implemented:

Video mode 4. 320x240 Mode-X.

Video mode 5. This is the new default mode for tall games. It's 320x240 with an adjusted aspect ratio to match mode 3, the default mode for short games. Around 50 or 60 games now start up in this mode by default.

Video mode 6. A much requested 320x240 scanline mode. It's really a 320x480 video mode using alternate scanlines to make it look like a TV screen.

Video mode 7. This is a 320x480 mode that displays every single line of a game so you can see everything.

A word on the new video modes:

Video modes are now switchable during game play using the keyboard. Press the number key on the keyboard (not the keypad) corresponding to the desired video mode to switch to.

All of these new modes run at 60 Hz to give correct play speed and they should run on just about any VGA card or monitor.

Emulator News: Nofrendo progress23:38: Yesterday, while ZD was down, Matt Conte (author of Nofrendo) posted some news on the official Nofrendo website about the current progress of Nofrendo II. Here's what's listed as of October 19:

Utility News: PCEID 0.99a23:34: PCEID is a TG16 ROM identifier, and a new version of it was released yesterday along with Hu6280 1.82. This new version now supports 437 ROMs, so you can rest assured that almost every TG16 ROM in the known universe will be supported by it :) (Note: I'm doing Stick Figure's update tonight because I'm on a roll.) You can download PCEID 0.99a from the Turbo Grafx 16 utilities page.

Emulator Release: Hu6280 1.8223:28: While Zophar's Domain was down, Jamsponge released version 1.82 of his TG16 emulator for DOS, Hu6280. Here's what's new:

Emulator News: TheSE to be continued?23:14: TheSE was an SNES emulator for DOS coded by the authors of USNES, an old SNES emulator that never really made it. It was discontinued a number of months ago, but it seems that we haven't heard the last of TheSE! From the official website:

We are currently working on a new version of TheSE. When it will be released we don't know. But we are back!!!

Site News: Update Marathon23:12: Hello people, Zophar here. Get ready for a huge marathon of updating for the 2 days we missed!

Site News: Zophar's Domain Screen Saver Released.22:46: I just felt like making a screen saver for Zophars Domain cause I was bored... :D It's only 11k zipped, and about 45k unzipped. This screen saver is for Windows 9x\NT. All it really is, is just all the staff members names floating around on the screen. :D ok, ok... so what! heh.

"I'm publically going to announce now that RPGe WILL RETURN SHORTLY. The new site will be up in a few weeks, just give me some time. I appreciate the support you have given RPGe regarding our web site and our projects."

Emulator Release: Snes9x v1.11d for Unix17:29: A pretty small update for the Linux version of snes9x, but since it's snes9x and snes9x is so darned swell... What's new:

Corrected the sound echo delay, it was varying with the sound playback rate choosen by the user, it shouldn't have been

Removed all floating point calculations from the sound generation code

Fiddled with the pitch modulation code - my guess is the output of a channel that is used to modulate the frequency of another channel is automatically muted by the SPC700 chip. Just a guess, but the wind from FF3 sounds 'better' but far from perfect

Optimized the tile palette index calculation

Optimized the planar to chuncky tile conversion code

Fixed X11 port to always scale SNES image if hi-res. only (no interpolation) support is enabled

Added zipped ROM image support using Gilles Vollant unzip code and some code that Ivar (Lestat) sent me a long time ago

65c816 asm RTI instruction was destroying the program bank in emulation mode, the C code was already correct. Caused C64E to break

Site News: Site downtime...16:28: I know it seems like a weekly thing, but we were down again there for a couple of days. It's annoying as hell that it happens so often, but make sure you guys tell people that we're back up again.

10/18/98Utility News: SPC Players Section; New WinSPC!01:04: Well, further dividing the site, I have added an SPC Players/Utilities Section, under the Utilities bar down the table to your right. Go take a gander.

Of course, the reason for this event is WinSPC 0.4 Beta 4! Here is what's new:

Added support for zsnes's change to the spc dump format, with the changed format there is more compatibility, like Terranigma.

Adjusted the settings so that only good sounding frequencies can be used, and corrected a bug in setting the frequencies.

It should play the first note now, testing it shows that it does.

Added a new format and a recorder for it. The new format is to help those with slower computers or for spc files that are very choppy because of being heavy on emulation, like Seiken Detsu 3.

I would strongly recommend that you mosey on over to the SPC Players Section, pick up WinSPC, and then go browse the SPC Archive to get some of your favorite SNES music.

10/17/98Site News: Nintendo 64 emulator page maintenance23:27: After seeing many things that were incorrect on the N64 emulators page, I took the time to make the following corrections:

Project UnReality: I removed the link to the homepage, since it was broke, and also put *Discontinued* in the description.

Reality 64: Name was changed to NSFE (Nintendo Sixty Four Emulator), and the homepage link has been changed.

NINCEST 64: Homepage link was fixed.

Visit the Nintendo 64 emulators page, and if you see anything else that is incorrect, please let me know.

Site News: Save archive updated17:53: Updated: SPC, SRM, STA archives.
A notice about ZMV contributions: movies are not simply save states with no controller movement. Please demonstrate player input in your movies.

Misc. News: Happy birthday to me!17:07: Nuff said.

Misc. News: Note about Zophar's requests16:45: Please ASK before sending (larger than 500K zips). While a ZIP may not appear on the SPC page, it may be cataloged for the next update. So, please check with me first that you are not sending a dup. Thanks.

Interview News: Email Wars Interview #26: Duddie & Tratax15:38: Emulators Unlimited has posted a new interview with Duddie & Tratax, concerning the next version of PSEmu Pro. It's a pretty long chat, so you should take the time to read it when you have a lot of free time.

Note: My site, and a few others, are mentioned in this interview, concerning the leaked alpha. You should note that ZD, and the other 2 sites, are not responsible for the alpha tester who leaked the alpha.

Emulator News: fwNES 0.30 to be released soon01:48: FanWen, author of fwNES, the NES emulator which supports the most mappers out of any other NES emulator, has posted a message on the official Vertigo/fwNES board concerning when the next release would be and what would be new. Here's the changes you can expect when it's released:

Emulator Release: TI-8x emulator added to TI page01:22: I've just added a cool TI calc emu to the TI page. It supports ALL the TI-8x calcs (except for the new 89) and it has some other nice features too. Go get check it out!

Misc. News: RPG-Net Closes...00:27: Last Friday, the popular site RPG-Net closed its doors because of the huge amount of patrons it had. Apparently, they had bills in excess of $400 for the amount of bandwidth it chewed. Visit their site at http://www.rpg-net.com for the full story!

Emulator Release: MAME v0.34b5 (for DOS)01:35: New beta version of MAME, the multiple arcade machine emulator, beta 5 for dos. Along with many game bugfixes, improved cheat system, and many other things what's new in b5:

Improved the user interface. Use "the key on the left of 1" (tilde on some keyboards) to turn on the On Screen Display which lets you change Volume, Gamma Correction, Brightess, and independently set the volume levels of the sound chips. Tab still brings up the setup menu, which is now asynchronous. [Nicola Salmoria]

[DOS] Improved the profiler. It now REQUIRES the Pentium-class RDTSC instruction. It will not work on 486s, older Pentiums, and maybe other non-Intel CPUs. [Nicola Salmoria]

10/15/98Emulator News: MasterGear 1.2 screenshots23:37: Here are some screenshots Marat sent along with his e-mail, of MasterGear 1.2 in action:

Emulator Release: MasterGear 1.223:29: Marat Fayzullin has just informed me that he has released a new version of his Sega Master System & GameGear emulator. (The DOS version is no longer developed, and there is no demo of the Windows commercial version, for your information). The 1.2 Unix binaries will be placed online later tonight or tommorow. Here's an excerpt from the e-mail:

A new version of the MasterGear emulator has just been released. Among other things is the emulation for Japanese SG1000/SC3000 consoles which were predecessors to the MasterSystem and multiple bug fixes to the VDP code. I am including several screen shots for those interested. See full information at http://www.komkon.org/fms/MG/

Here's what's new:

Documentation expanded. READ IT!

Added emulation for Japanese SG1000/SC3000 systems which were predecessors to the MasterSystem.

Emulator Release: NES496 0.1123:01: Jason Millard has released a new version of his NES emulator for Windows 9X: NES496 0.11. It's a minor release:

Fixed problems while loading ROM images.

Fixed color problems found on some video cards. (Thanks cdoty@pcisys.net)

Thanks to 'JonnyButt' for the news. You can download NES496 from the NES emulators page.

Emulator Release: Z26 1.1418:53: John Saegar does it again, with version 1.14 of his fast, small, and very accurate Atari 2600 emulator for DOS, Z26. It's my personal favorite Atari 2600 emulator, I know I've said this a hundred times but I must reiterate :) Here's what's new:

More intense NTSC (normal) colors.

Added support for PAL colors.

Added support for paddle games with keyboard or joystick. Please see readme.txt for more information.

Emulator News: Jaguar Tech Info request18:23: _DrMario_ would like to make a request to anyone who is able to help him. He is interested in writing an Atari Jaguar emulator, so any technical information you can give him on the Jaguar's inner working would be extremely helpfu. You can e-mail _DrMario_ at jason@spis.net.

Emulator Release: Come Back 64 0.9718:15: Johan Fitie And Brad Martin have released version 0.97 of their Commodore 64 emulator for DOS, Come Back 64. Here's what's new:

Site News: Calculator Emulator Section Added16:06: There's now a section for calculator emus on ZD! Its deals with HP and TI calculators. I had no problem with the TI calcs, but I've never used any HP calcs, so check out the page and mail me if you have. Also keep in mind that most of these emulators require the bios from the calculator to run. You can get those at the bios page.

Emulator News: Apologies to Duddie and Tratax06:23: I'd like to take the opportunity to apologize to Duddie and Tratax about PSEmu Pro 1.09. I hadn't realized that it was an alpha/beta whatever you want to call it. The news was given to me by a source on irc, I asked why it wasn't on the page, and he said it was an unsupported public beta.

Again, i'm sorry for any damage I have done and in the future i'll be more careful on what I update so not to cause any further problems. This isn't something that normally happens and hopefully it won't again.

FYI: The update has been removed from ZD, along with the file and the information for it on the playstation emulator page.

Misc. News: FF7 rules.04:25: Okay, this is my update for today. Somehow the one who's responsible for all the computers in this school screwed up so that I can't use any ftp programs. It will be fixed tomorrow, so I'll be back with an update to both StarLaunch, Run-It and maybe some other stuff.

Btw, ff7 rules. I've got a p100, so it jerks, but it's still playable, so I've already finished it twice :)
I'm just sorry all my friends suck, cuz it takes them 45 hours to get to Gold Saucer the first time.

Site News: More SPC Requests00:26: A few days ago, I posted some SPC requests for the ZSNES SPC archive. To refresh your memory, they were:

Final Fantasy III (VI in japan)

Final Fantasy V

Chrono Trigger

Secret of Mana

Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest

Thanks to the people who mailed in the soundtracks, we now have the Chrono Trigger and FF: Mystic Quest soundtracks (they'll be put online during the next archive update). We're still looking for the other three, as well as entire soundtracks for:

Lufia & The Fortress of Doom

Breath of Fire

Breath of Fire 2

Remember to fill out the form, and to e-mail alamone, not me. Please check with him first before sending any attachments.

10/14/98Emulator Release: RuMSX 0.1423:57: It appears we missed yet another update! This one was released about a month ago: RuMSX 0.14 (MSX emulator for DOS). Here's what's new in this version:

LEXMSX.ZIP has been changed, MSXIMAGE.ZIP has FMPAC.ROM updated

PSG/SCC sound-quality improved!! (DirectSound no longer required)

ROM-Type was not correctly detected if ROM-image was launched by double-clicking it! I.e. it was not possible to start

MetalGear2 by double-clicking the icon (hang during startup).

Bug in memory-manager fixed (in some cases an incorrect memory-type was assumed, this may also have caused memory-manager to fail)

Copy Disk-to-Image crashes, if drive is already locked (i.e. disk is being formatted)

Data-changes on floppy disk were not automatically applied in the explorer (must be refreshed manually)

Win95: changed data on floppy disk may be corrupted if simultaneous changes are made from other programs (Windows NT implementation worked fine)

Window-size description was reverse of the technical correct (i.e. 1:3 instead of 3:1)

Portability-fixup for Alpha-Workstations running Windows NT

MSX.EXE did not terminate fully if running on Windows NT, wave-device still occupied! KillProcess/Logoff/ShutDown hangs system

PSG/SCC now clean resetted if MSX is restarted (sometimes sounds are played too long or infinite, even if MSX was restarted)

Marcel's E-Mail address has been changed

Big thanks to Archaic Ruins, or else I would have missed for this even longer than I did! You can download RuMSX 0.14 from the MSX emulators page.

Emulator Release: Ultra 64 0.2a23:41: It appears we missed an update! A few days ago, a new N64 emulator for Windows95/98 was released. It's called Ultra 64 (which happens to be the name that everyone called the N64 prior to its release in America). Basically, what this emulator can and can't do can be summed up in 2 sentences from the official page:

Please note that Ultra 64 currently only emulates the CPU, memory and registers therefore there is no graphics or audio. So don't e-mail me and ask why Golden Eye doesn't run :)

You can download Ultra 64 0.2a from the Nintendo 64 emulators page. Thanks to Xaviar for informing me about this missed update.

Emulator Release: DTMNT 0.5319:48: Yes, a new version of DTMNT has been released. Not much new in this release:

Parallel port support for 4 SNES joypads (like ZSNES) Cheers to Adrian for this idea. By default this feature is off - see readme.txt.

A few other bits and pieces to do with sound

You should note that this version has a bug that causes the speed to cut in half when sound is enabled. For this reason, 0.52 is still online for download. You can get DTMNT 0.53 from the Single-Arcade emulators page.

Misc. News: RPGe to return?19:20: A few days ago, we posted the sad news that RPGe, one of the most famous japanese to english translation groups, had been disbanded. However, there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel. If you view the HTML source to the page, you will come across this:
<!-- RPGe will be back. I promise you, it will. -->
<!-- I just need time to think. Alone. -->
<!-- Thanks for your support. -harmony7 -->

Interview News: Li Jih Hwa (NAO)19:16: This interview with Li Jih Hwa (aka NAO), of System 16 and M72 Emulator fame, was conducted by Steve Jones. Check it out, it's really interesting to see what NAO has to say.

Frontend News: M72Front 1.00!04:11: Yes! Fast as lightning has this frontend been updated again. Now it has been all boosted up from beta release to full release and it now supports version 0.33 of the M72 arcade game emulator.

Interview News: Emulators Unlimited adds new interviews.00:47:Emulators Unlimited has posted an interview with Omega Core author Tom Scott in E-Mail Wars #25. EmuStation at EmuUnlim has recorded an interview with P/AMAME author Rodimus Prime. The Dot Eaters, Videogame History, site has moved to Emulators Unlimited here as well as NeoLight recently moving here.

Emulator Release: Penix V 300:21: Sorry about not reporting on this sooner, but there have been so many new versions of emulators and news, that this got lost in the mix somehow. _DrMario_, who happens to be a good friend of mine, has released v 3 of his Phoenix Arcade emulator for DOS. Here's what's new in Penix v 3:

10/12/98Site News: SPC Requests23:50: As you all know, we have a ZSNES SPC archive here at ZD. However, I have noticed that there haven't been too many submissions featuring entire soundtracks. So, this is a request to anyone who has entire SPC soundtracks of the following games:

Final Fantasy III (VI in japan)

Final Fantasy V

Chrono Trigger

Secret of Mana

Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest

If you have entire SPC soundtracks of these (and yes, I realize the zip would be well over a meg in size for some of these), please fill out the Example form and include it in the zip. E-mail alamone, not me, and make sure you check with him first before sending ANY attachments. And thanks!

Misc. News: Say Bye-Bye to Freedom of Speech20:54: It would be best to just paste the headline:

H.R. 3694, the Intelligence Authorization Act Conference Report, authorizes YOUR phone to be wiretapped, in secret and without court review, simply if a suspect happens to be nearby!

This isn't really emulation related; however, I thought this should be brought to as many peoples' attentions as possible. I was made aware of this news by slashdot.org, and the actual story is at http://www.eff.org/hot/19981008_wiretap_alert.html. Read up on it and decide for yourself. This could be the end of a lot of what we now consider freedom if this is passed.

Misc. News: RPGe is gone...20:16: Well, looks like this is it... RPGe is dead. Go check out the RPGe site and see harmony7's message. 'Tis a sad day.

"I was in a very destructive mood, so I've decided to shut down RPGe. If you're going to complain, complain to those people who didn't read our feedback page before sending e-mail. Complain to those people who continuously sent me e-mail saying, "please translate ____" or asking "how do I apply a patch"... Complain to those people who STILL send me e-mail telling me that I don't update my site often enough. This is a HOBBY, for god's sake!

Some guy sent an e-mail asking what he was doing wrong when he was dragging the .ips file onto IPS.EXE. That's when I felt like I'd had it.

I know I sound like a jerk but I've had enough.

If you'd care to leave a message, drop us a note. Our e-mail is rpge@fx.ml.org. "

We wish all you RPGe guys the best of luck.

Utility News: Dragon Warrior Town Editor V. 1.916:21: The Dragon Warrior Town Editor seems to have disappeared from our systems for a while. It is currently at version 1.9. Well, we found it again. Here's a list of what we missed.

1.9

Now can edit roofs!

Preserves last bit of tiles in shrines and dungeons.

Made page numbering more convient.

1.8b

Now features ALL MAPS execpt the overworld.

Now supports maps that aren't square.

Changed MAP file format a bit. (maps should still work with older versions)

1.5b

Now automaticly shows specials everywhere!

Shows destinations of stairs.

Added a warp feature to "go down stairs."

Added full support for DragonQuest (even though Dragon Warrior is infinately better!)

Emulator News: Raine to support 3 new games13:42: Three more games will be supported in the next version of Raine, a DOS based multi-arcade emulator. From the official Raine page:
As we come near a new release more and more games are added in Raine, so here are pics of the two missing Rastan Saga games: Rastan Saga 2 and Warrior Blade a two screens game very similar to Golden Axe are now both playable!
You also have Syvalion the first Taito System H game emulated.

Utility News: More NES level editors.06:06: To the people who haven't been watching the various NES level editors coming in, I can pretty much sum up the editors that have been coming in recently (say, within the last month) with five short words: Kent Hansen and Tecmo Football. It really shouldn't surprise anyone when, lo and behold, I update the facelift utilities page with two utilities:

WCEdit (A Wrecking Crew Editor by Kent Hansen)

The Flash Tecmo Editor (A Tecmo Football game editor)

While the Flash Tecmo Editor is a year old, we'll let that slide. :)

Find them both (along with a ton of others, mostly made by Kent Hansen) on the Facelift Utilities page.

Frontend News: M72Front 0.20b!04:51: Maxim Viale of mrgsoft has made yet another frontend! This one's for the M72 Arcade Game emulator and support all of its features.
The frontends from mrgsoft are usually of high quality, so I recommend you to try this one.

Emulator Release: WinGroove 0.A102:47: Well, not really an emulator (it's actually a synthesizer), but WinGroove 0.A1, after about a year of inactivity, is finally out. For those who don't know, this shareware synthesizer allows those people with non wavetable soundcards, or crappy wavetable, to experience MIDI in a way they never thought possible (how's that for a blatant plug?). Here's what's new (according to Luckyman):

Trace play supports. Show your friends your best play records! Use F9 to record, F11 to play. Try it now!

Scanline display option. This option uses 800x600 display mode for doubling every dots. It will be a bit slower than the preferred 400x300 hardware double pixel mode. But if your system happens to have no usable 400x300 display mode, this could work as a solution.

Site News: Quotes Page Split01:07: Finally, i got around to splitting the quotes page in two. Although this makes the loading time shorter, it still is going to need to be split differently from now on, i'm figuring that i'm going to start dating and timestamping the quote additions, and then archiving them monthly. I also plan to get a new image the old one is terrably outdated (eww) and i might style it up differently sooner or later.

On a side note, i'd like to remind you all that ZD is at www.zophar.net, NOT milhouse.web-ex.com/~zophar.

Emulator News: Next ZSNES will run Tales of Phantasia00:00: It's official! The next version of ZSNES will run that 48mbit ROM that everyone's been asking about over the past year, Tales of Phantasia! This japanese RPG can be seen running great on the next release of ZSNES in the pics shown below, courtesy of zsKnight & _Demo_.

10/11/98Site News: 100% unemulator related: the enygma that is Zophar22:44: I have been getting many e-mails over the past 2 years asking me, where did your nick come from? Where did the name of your page come from? In case you hadn't guessed, 'Zophar' is the name of the archfiend, the final boss, the 'destroyer' in the Sega CD RPG Lunar: Eternal Blue, by GameArts. So I've decided to place a few MP3s online from the game, in an effort for those of you who have never heard of the game to hear some samples, and for those who have to enjoy portions of voice and music from the game!

Note that you'll need an MP3 player, such as WinAmp, to play these sound files. So without any furthur adeu, the MP3s! (Zipped to avoid corruption when downloading.)

Site News: Thanx.02:50: OK, thanx alot! Three people sent me the source.. (: and I really appriciate that they had the time to do so, I will give a better thanx when I upload them tomorrow for ZD. Thanx again.

PS. Don't send anymore :D

Translation News: AAGT is back!01:58: Although DarkMazda's Domain is still down, AAGT is back up. It is now hosted by emulationzone.org. Go there and check it out. Also remember that DarkMazda still needs a host for DarkMazda's Domain, so mail him if you can help.

10/10/98Misc. News: SNES9x source code help.22:21: If anyone out there could download the SNES9x source code, and uncompress it, and send it to me, I would be very greatful.

Emulator Release: New NES emulator: NES496 0.1021:34: A new NES emulator has been released. Dubbed NES496 (the name came from CSE496, the author's computer programming course that he coded NES496 for), it runs nes ROMs that use mapper 0, 1, 2 or 3. It has no sound yet, and the palette is incorrect (at least on my computer), but it has a neat debugger. It's for Windows 95/98.

Utility News: GM2MID File Update..20:43: Considering that the page for GM2MID is currently down, we posted the full program (including DLL files and a full install program) instead of the partial one (which didn't include DLLs).

Utility News: EMUTools release07:43: A new version of Marat's EMUTools has been released. Considering that no version number is to be found, I'm guessing he's using the date as his place mark (making this version 10/09/98). Here's a list of all of the utilities that are part of the package:

Utility News: Burnout...07:31: I'd like to say sorry to everyone about the lack of utilities page updates in the past few days, but I've been suffering a bit of burnout recently (yeah, good timing, just when I start out at ZD). I'll most likely be back to normal form in a few days, just give me a bit of a break. I'm just starting to do a big update right now. :)

Emulator News: IntelliV news01:25: A while ago, I posted news here about an IntelliVision emulator called IntelliV that was being worked on by Red Ant Productions. Will of Red Ant Productions is asking that anyone with any tech info on the IntelliVision to please e-mail him: raproductions@hotmail.com.

Also, anyone who has any way to copy IntelliVision games, let him know, as he has a bunch of IV carts that he can send for dumping.

Utility News: New version of EMUTools01:17: Marat Fayzullin has e-mailed ZD to let us know that a new version of his EMUTools package, an assortment of many emulation utilities such as GBLIST, GBDASM and more. Straight from Marat:

A new version of EMUTools has just been released and can be obtained from

GBLIST has been changed. It is now based on a more recent version of GBCarts library which recognizes new MBCs, ROM sizes, and attributes. GBDASM and several other programs have also been minorly changed. There is also a documentation available now. It is in HTML form and can be viewed from the WWW page given above.

Also coming: new EMULib with TMS9918 and AY8910 emulation modules and updates to the CPU emulation modules. Also, there will be a guide on how to use EMULib and CPU emulators.

Marat Fayzullin

Stick Figure 98 will add the new EMUTools pack to ZD sometime tonight or tommorow. For now, get it at Marat's page.

10/9/98Emulator Release: X-Mame v0.34b3.1 (for Unix)22:40: After a long time of the X-Mame page being down, here's the new version. X-Mame supports most recent Unix systems. Over 854 games now supported, that's alot of games, and new features:

Everything from dos-0.34b3

Fixed the compilation problem on some platforms in config.c (missing includes for sys/stat.h and unistd.h)

Speeded up palette cycling under xf86_dga with 8bpp

Rewrote X mouse handling now mouse works under xf86_dga

Added support for 15bpp truecolor visuals

Fixed irix_nosound and aix_nosound targets

Fixed a bug in osd_fseek which caused sample loading to fail, now samples work as advertised.

Emulator News: Callus 1 year Anniversary & more13:45: 1 year ago, Bloodlust Software released the first version of Callus, a Capcom system 1 emulator capable of running well even on lower end Pentiums. The update on ZD read as follows:

10/09/97
Callus 0.10 has been released. This new emulator by BloodLust Software runs Capcom System-1 games. It currently only runs Final fight, but will run others in the future such as Street Fighter 2. Get it at the Arcade page.

It's also interesting to note that Snes9x 0.20 was also released on October 9, 1997, and featured a GUI and speed increases.

Finally, we are exactly 1 month away from Zophar's Domain's 2 year anniversary! Yes, it's hard to believe, but on November 9, 1996, we opened the doors of Zophar's Domain to the public! Stay tuned for lots of surprises to come.

Emulator News: PSEmu Pro: new version release date13:35: A new version of PSEmu Pro will be released this October 18th (which is in 9 days) to celebrate 1 year since PSEmu first began. We wish the entire PSEmu team the best of luck in the future. Also, there are some screenshots posted at the official PSEmu page, you should check them out right away.

Emulator News: More on Nofrendo II13:31: A few days ago, I posted the news about how the rebuilding of Nofrendo was coming along (for those of you who didn't know, Matt Conte's computer was stolen by some fool, and he had to start over from scratch). The Nofrendo page has been updated with the following progress report:

VS. System support

Sprite priorities working 100%

Graphics engine speed boost

Good luck to Matt Conte on his rebuilding of Nofrendo.

10/8/98Emulator Release: Come Back 64 0.9619:32: A new release of Come Back 64, a Commodore 64 emulator for DOS with freely distributable source included, is now available. Here's what's new in 0.96:

Select between 360x240 and 320x200 resolution (360x240 is slooowwww, needs a P166)

Improved emulation detection method at 0xDFA0

Improved 6510 CPU compatibility

Sprites work better (still not 100%, though)

Made more games work with the emulator

More bugfixes

Thanks to Buaku for the what's new (there was none included in the zip). You can download Come Back 64 0.96 from the Commodore 64 emulators page.

Emulator News: BLEEM a phony?19:14: Many of you may have been reading on various emulation news sites that a secret PSX emulator known as BLEEM, supposedly in the works, will be able to run almost all PSX games at a great speed on a P166, and other 'too good to be true' sounding details. JoseQ of JoseQ's Emuviews has done a news article about BLEEM, exposing it for the phony that it may very well be! I urge you to check out his article, he actually spoke to the BLEEM 'author' and he had some very interesting things to say. Remember though, this is just JoseQ's opinion, not necessarily ZD's.

Emulator Release: Stella 1.0 DOS18:44: 2 months after a pre-release beta of Stella 1.0 was released, 1.0 final followed. Here's what's new in one of the best, and most ported, Atari 2600 emulator for 1.0 (DOS version):

Emulator Release: GalEMU 0.1317:47: A new version of GalEMU is out. Here's what's new:

Pisces now works, but there may be the odd graphical glitch.

Fixed a problem where GalEMU wouldn't run under DOS mode. Serves me right for not testing it under DOS mode. There was no problem if it was run under Windows 95, which I use because GCC compiles much quicker under Windows. If anyone has run GalEMU under another O/S other than Windows 95 or DOS, such as NT, OS/2, Linux (through DOSEmu), or even an older version of DOS (pre-Win95), then please e-mail me.

Emulator Release: New Famicom 4.1 Translation16:23: MEGA▀ąTE of Patent Pending has released a more complete translation of that lovable (but weird) Windows emulator, Famicom. I have replaced the old one with the more complete one.

10/7/98Frontend News: The Frontend Central (FEC)02:19: Do you like frontends? If you do, then there's a site that completely (or, heh, almost completely) dedicated to frontends. This site is called The Frontend Central. I've taken a look at the pages, and the design looks really good. Also, if you're making a frontend, you can join FEC as a member and get some publicity.

Site News: Of message boards00:41: Here's something I need to clear up. I've been getting a LOT of e-mails lately, asking me to "please unban from ZSNES message board!!!" Unfortunately, I do not run the ZSNES message board. zsKnight and _Demo_ do, so please, do not e-mail me about that, I can't help you.

Emulator News: Words on Thunder00:34: A couple of you e-mailed me asking what I thought of Thunder (which is strange, because no one e-mails me questions like that). Unfortunately, I can't tell you because the emulator seems to have a problem with my video card. It gives me this error in a logfile:

Contrary to what the error says, my video card (an I3D Voodoo Rush), DOES support Vesa 2.0, as well as 320X240 in both 8 bit and 16 bit modes. (Don't e-mail me suggesting Sci Tech.) However, this is a beta, and I'm sure the problem will be corrected in a future version of Thunder.

Emulator Release: RockNES 0.5600:29: The RockNES team has updated their NES emulator to version 0.56. This has been quite a day/night for NES emulation (Nofrendo news, Kent Hansen's NES tile sprite editor, madNES and RockNES updates...). Here's what's new:

Support for multiple state save files (up to 25) use keys F8 & F9 to select slot.

Changed the frameskip key to - or +.

Much better support for mapper 16, IRQ support is buggy.

Preliminary support for the following mappers: 17 (IRQ support is buggy), 19, 21 (gfx corrupted), 23 (most games should work ok), 33 (most games should run), 34 (no games work yet), 66, 71 (no games work yet), 78 (untested), 79 (most games should work), and 91 (no games work yet).

Fixed snapshot code when the game name was less than 5 letters long.

The snapshot code now clips correctly the leftmost 8 bits when the game lowers the screen resolution.

Fixed savegame code not saving the battery RAM on some games.

The new gfx engine is about 70% complete almost every game's screen is interpreted correctly, even the complex ones (Isolated warrio, skate or die, road blaster).

10/6/98Emulator Release: Thunder beta 422:24: Thunder is a Rolling Thunder arcade emulator (and the only one as well) for DOS. It supports sound through samples. You can get it at the single arcade emulators page, but make sure you have a fast computer (P2-266+) 'cause it's slow.

Emulator Release: MAME 0.34 beta 421:32: A new beta of MAME is out, and it supports more than 20 new ROM sets. Want it? Then go to the multi arcade emulators page.

Utility News: Genecyst gm2 music format to MIDI converter20:41: Paul Jensen has released genecyst utility that converts Genecyst GYM files to MIDI files to be played in any MIDI program... Too bad it didn't convert ZSNES .spc files too... :) His gm2mid program was written in Visual Basic, and is simple and to the point. It also has a source code inside the zip so you can see how he does it.. :)

Emulator Release: Semu v0.1.6 for Unix18:34: Hopefully the last missed console emulator release. Semu 0.1.6 for Linux and and 0.1.11 source for other unix. What's new? I do not know, there is no What's New documentation...

Misc. News: Emulation In Magazines, Again18:32: The November Issue of Computer Games Strategy Plus's editorial talks about MAME a bit. I've scanned the article and put it below. Click the image for a larger version.

On a side note, if you have twelve bucks, you should consider subscribing to this magazine, simply because you get two years' worth (24 issues) for twelve dollars. Very hard to beat that price. The actual content is nothing special, but it's good toilet reading.

Emulator Release: Boycott 0.41b18:21: Gollum, author of Boycott, has e-mailed ZD to let us know that he has released version 0.41b of his GameBoy emulator for DOS. Here's what's new:

Beta release since GUI is not completed

Preliminary mouse support (only an inactive cursor in 320x200)

Debugger improved
* Clear screen first
* Show ten lines of code at the same time
* Display skin name
* Debug file "DEBUG.TXT" with stats about instructions

Utility News: Tile Layer V. 0.30b18:16: Tile Layer, one of the best NES graphics editing utilities available, version 0.30b has been released. This program has had three updates in the last two days. As you can probably guess, a lot has been updated, most notably the Game Boy support. Here's the list of what's been updated in the last few versions:

Checksums are recalculated for .GB ROMs when they are saved, so that the ROMs will work on GameBoy emulators which require the checksum value to be correct.

Rotate tile 90 degrees function added.

Added a menu button to switch palettes ("Pal").

Ability to import a pre-defined NES palette (tlayer.pal). See section "Importing a NES palette" below for more info. Example palettes included, press Left Shift to browse through the available ones.

Autodetection of tile format based on extension of file (.NES / .GB). No longer necessary to press F1 to switch between the two formats, unless you have your GameBoy ROMs named as *.NES. :P

GameBoy support (press F1 to toggle between NES/GB format)

By having two ROMs open at the same time, you can copy GameBoy tiles to a NES ROM or vice versa!!!

Customizable colors (select R,G,B values yourself)

Offset finetuning. Allows you to increase/decrease the ROM offset by one, instead of 100h. Necessary when editing games where the tile data isn't 16-byte aligned (ex. Zelda).

Emulator News: Nofrendo II progress report17:44: As we reported on ZD a few weeks ago, Matt Conte, author of Nofrendo, had his computer stolen. He has been rebuilding the code from scratch, and we have good news to report! Here's how the progress with Nofrendo is going:

10/5/98Emulator Release: PSEmu Pro 1.08 (unsupported)12:49: Just hours ago, Duddie released an unsupported beta version of PSEmuPro, his PSX emulator for Windows 9X. In this unsupported version, which just includes the executable file and needed DLLs, there are a few changes, such as:

Support for GT and Soul Edge

Basic MDEC support

Mem cards supported

Remember, this is not officially supported, so please don't mail in any bug reports for this version. You can download PSEmuPro 1.08 from the PSX emulators page. Thanks to iVilDeD for the news.

Misc. News: Fixo Files adds more interviews12:15: ManBeast sent the following e-mail regarding new interviews at The Fixo Files:

Check out the interviews, they're quite interesting. Thanks to ManBeast for the word.

Utility News: SMC File Checker Updated06:06: The SMC file checker and format type converter has been updated to version 0.m. According to LuckyMan (the person who notified me), this is a minor update. I'll take his word for it, because the manual is in Japanese. Here's what's new:

Translation News: Thingy 0.96!04:46: Thingy, one of the best ROM hacking progs programmed in QBasic throughout the world. It has support for DTE and Dual HEX value stuff and all the other stuff you could ever want, like script dumping, script inserting, nice interface, etc. It does lack the occasionally funny cool gfx effects though :D.
I really want to show my support for this ROM editor since it roams around in the same jungle as UNIROM. The QBasic jungle! :D

Frontend News: CoMeT 2.51!04:26: A new SNES9x frontend has arrived to the 'scene'! :) This new frontend seems like a good one, even though I haven't been able to try it yet. All I'm saying is that it's worth a try :)

Frontend News: TeleKawaru's fMSX frontend!04:05: TeleKawaru, the author of TeleKawaru's SNES9x frontend, has made a new frontend! This one's for fMSX-DOS and supports all of it's command line options and it's really worth a try. I don't know if it's made in QBasic yet, heh, but I'll probably find out :)

Emulator Release: GalEMU 0.1200:46: A new version of GalEMU, an arcade emulator that runs Galaxian (and clones) and a few other games, is out. Here's what's new:

Added Pac-Man (bootleg), Uniwars and Gingateikoku no Gyakushu.

Fixed missing sprite problem.

Also added Pisces and Zig Zag (set 2) which are not yet working.

You can download it at the single arcade emulators page, although it may end up at the multi arcade emulators page someday if it keeps supporting more and more games.

10/4/98Emulator Release: MESS v0.2b4 for Unix21:10: MESS (Multiple Emulator Super System) has been recently ported to Solaris, there is also an available source code. All drivers have had graphics and sound improvements, and these drivers have been added:

Misc. News: Psyke mentioned in the November issue of "Next Generation"20:08: Here is the e-mail received from Grant Hollis regarding Psyke (a playstation emulator) in a recent magazine:

Thought you should know that Psyke is also in the latest issue of Next Generation (November issue). The article also states more information on the "playstation:-sega Dreamcast emulator". Check it out if you get the chance.

Thanx goes to Grant Hollis for the e-mail.

Site News: New staff member19:39: Hello people! I'm chrisss the maintainer of the new BIOS pages. If you don't know what a BIOS is, it's the internal ROM in systems and computers that controls the basic IO functions. If you have an emulator that requires a BIOS ROM to run, check the pages. There is also disk images of operating systems on these pages, some computer emulators require these as well. If you have anything that I don't, drop me a line, but be sure to ask before sending files. And above all, don't ask about ROMs I don't have, or you shall feel my wrath. Thanks

Misc. News: DarkMazda's Domain is gone! :(14:53: As you might know, DarkMazda said a few days ago that his site may go down. DarkMazda.com was supposed to be up today, but due to a broken promise, it didn't happen, and DarkMazda's Domain is gone. DarkMazda is looking for someone with at least 20mb of space to host him. If you can help, please e-mail DarkMazda at drkmazda@earthlink.net.

Site News: Linkage Detected...Linkage Confirmed11:03: That's right boys and girls, the Links page has been updated. Didn't need to do much to it this week...

On another note, I'd just like to mention a site called JoseQ's EmuViews, which is quite the elite site. If you need in depth info on something, concerning emulation (duh), check it out. Neato graphics too...I liked the Zophar's Domain one:)

We now do all option parsing using Xt, this is the first step in the process of doing more stuff in Xt. We no longer have the XCOPILOT* environment variables. We have only XCOPILOTARGS, which contains a string of command line options. This will unfortunately cause people pain on upgrade, but makes it easier to add options in the future.

Site News: New Utilities Maintainer18:49: Hola, Stick Figure 98 here doing my first duty as Utilities maintainer, introducing myself. If you don't know me, hit the board -- I post there a lot. Things are going to be different after I'm done, but that's only if Zophar will let me. :P

Next time you hit one of the Utilities page, remember that I'm updating it now, and I don't take any shit. :)

Misc. News: Psyke In the Media, Continued16:39: Thanks to SYch0, we have a scan of the article about Psyke that appeared in the October issue of Playstation Magazine. Click the image for a larger version.

Emulator News: Upcoming VGB to have CGB support16:02: Marat Fayzullin, author of emulators such as iNES, VGB and MasterGear, has e-mailed ZD with the news that the upcoming version of VGB, version 1.3, will have Color GameBoy(CGB) support! He's also sent us some screenshots of VGB 1.3 in action! Right from Marat:

Attached are some Color GameBoy screenshots from the upcoming version of Virtual GameBoy. The game shown is a Japanese DragonQuest Monsters.

Although the screenshots show both CGB colors and SGB screen border, the actual game obviously uses only one of those (there is no SuperCGB :)). Virtual GameBoy emulates both though, so the game shows up with both CGB and SGB features.

Check out these pics:

Emulator Release: Snes9x 1.10a DOS14:47: The Snes9x camp has released a new version of Snes9x for DOS, version 1.10a (without GUI). Note that the DOS version is no longer officially supported, so please don't bother them with complaints and bug requests, or else it will be canceled totally. The what's new list is something like this (there is no README with the DOS version, so this is from the Linux version):

More DSP1 work. Mario Kart is now playable! The character projection code is still broken so the opponents and obstacles aren't always positioned correctly on screen and you keep bumping into them, but I can still keep coming first!

Emulator Release: Come Back 64 0.9505:07: A few days ago, Come Back 64 0.95 was released, but the official page seemed to be down. Now, it's back up, so it has been uploaded to ZD. Here's what's new in this Commodore 64 emulator for DOS:

Emulator Release: UAE v0.7.6 for Unix02:53: Here we have the latest version of UAE (Unusable Amiga Emulator), another missed update. This source is compilable on any "half-recent Unix-like operating system". UAE is definately usable except for:

The buggiest part right now is the sprite emulation, it's also incomplete: sprite to playfield collisions are unimplemented

The parallel port is not really implemented, although it's sufficient for printing

Site News: Poll fixed02:44: It was brought to my attention by Court Jester that the poll was still linking to zophar.malicia.com, which doesn't work anymore. It's been fixed. The question, in case you haven't posted yet, is "Should newer systems/games be emulated, if possible?" Cast your votes!

Emulator Release: VGB v1.2 for Unix01:46: Latest release of Marat Fayzullin's Gameboy emulator, actually not a new release but due to circumstances beyond my control it was not updated sooner. Available in four flavors: Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris Sparc, and SunOS Sparc. Updates include:

Site News: Regarding www.zophar.net13:59: Over the past few days, a lot of people have been e-mailing me, messaging me on IRC, and posting on other site's messageboards, trying to figure out why zophar.malicia.com no longer works, and where ZD went. I've responded to all the messages and e-mails, directing them to www.zophar.net, but I fear that many people still are looking for ZD's location.

So, a couple days ago, I sent out e-mails to all of the more popular emulation-related sites I could think of, letting them know where we moved to. Only one of the sites (and the maintainer knows who he is) didn't post news regarding the move.

However, even today I still get e-mails asking where we went. So, to all of you, if you come across anyone trying to find ZD's new location, please let them know we've moved here. Thanks to everyone for supporting ZD, even after our zillion moves :)

Now, onto www.zophar.net. Many of you are wondering, why did we lose it last month in the first place? Well, what happened was, the person who originally registered it for us never made the payment (although he promised he would). However, all has been forgiven, we now have the domain back once again, and all is good.

Emulator News: PSyKe in the media13:49: If any of you have stores near you that sell Playstation Magazine, or if you have a subscription, check out the October issue. There's an article in there that talks about PSyKe. Instead of degrading the emulator, they seem very positive about it. Anyone who has a scanner and the magazine and would like to scan the article and send it to ZD for posting, it would be appreciated.

Thanks to FatalDoom for the mail.

Misc. News: RockNES homepage temporary move13:41: The RockNES homepage has temporarily moved to http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Castle/2622/. The reason for this is due to EmuCamp's server changing, Fx3 can't get in to update his pages, so until this problem has been sorted out, you can find the page there.

As a side note, many emulaor authors seem to be having trouble keeping their pages online, and others seem to be on unstable servers, such as Xoom and Fortunecity. Remember, ZD is open to emulator authors in need of a home, all you have to do is send an e-mail and we'll see what we can do for you.

10/1/98Misc. News: Info On Mario Kart in SNES9x 1.121:59: I thought some of you might be wondering how good Mario Kart plays on SNES9x 1.1 for Linux. The short version: You're not missing much.

When you start playing, it looks like it's going to run Mario Kart flawlessly, but apparently, the track points the wrong way, and you hit the wall again and again, no matter what you do. Also, objects seem to fly all over the place, but I think these objects are actually in the correct spot, and it is the road which is misplaced. The novelty of actually seeing the track in Mario Kart in an emulator is nice, but the game itself is actually unplayable.

I haven't tried the netplay of SNES9x Linux 1.1 yet, so I don't know how good that works. If I try it out I'll post my thoughts on it.

Emulator Release: TrueReality v1998090701 for Unix17:08: Another missed release, new version of TrueReality Unix N64 emulator, new features include:

Frontend News: TeleKawaru's SNES9x frontend Windows port!04:19: Yeah! The Qbasic frontend has now been ported to Visual Basic! :D This is a good SNES9x frontend to try, even if its author is always bitching at me cuz I spelled his nickname wrong :)